PROPOSALS and REPORTS (Lindquist, Beckett)

>From: Dave Beckett <beckett@ligo.caltech.edu>

• Developing a LIGO blog article on the new LHO cluster.
• Making updates to the web-posted LIGO Chronology. I am canvassing for noteworthy achievements and highlights for this year and last.  I'd also like to expand the entries for top-level accomplishments predicted over the next several years. I will compile a list of candidate highlights and submit to the Directorate for review.
• Have begun editing sections of the Annual Report.

CHANGE REQUESTS (Lindquist)

• There are no open change requests for LIGO Operations.

HUMAN RESOURCES (Akutagawa)

>From: Cindy Akutagawa <cindy@ligo.caltech.edu>

• No report.

Quality/Safety (Nolting)

LIGO Lab Safety:

• Bill Tyler was able to complete several safety "orientations" with late arriving students and "volunteers".  Also arranged additional laser safety classes for the late folks with Caltech Safety.  Bill also met with Aidan Brooks and Alastair Heptostall to go over questions and revisions to the new 1W NPRO laser SOP.

LIGO Hanford Observatory (LHO) and Interferometer Operations (Raab)

Summary of Activities at LIGO Hanford Observatory
(compiled by M. Landry)

• In an attempt to reduce 60Hz and sidebands, we vented HAM6 on Wednesday and fixed three spurious grounds. The vent was short and by evening we were back locked in power up. The grounded shields on TT2 and QPDs appear not to have been the cause of the excess sidebands on 60Hz, however, since they remain in the spectra (one complication is that a QPD shield ground has returned - during an S6 commissioning break we will have to swap out conducting strain relief with insulators to minimize shield grounds).
• TCS work: clamping and damping of a parabolic mirror was done on TCSX, and thermopiles were added for better power monitoring at the output to the ITMs.
• Calibration work continued: analog filter measurements and the construction of associated digital compensation filters; a new (initial) S6 calibration model was assembled, with still-incomplete knowledge of the OM1 ADC chain

Squeezer Update (D. Sigg)

• MIT (S. Dwyer): We had some trouble with the laser controller last week, but its working now and Arati has measured the beam so she can do the mode matching calculation and beam propagation. I've also started working on the noise model.

Outreach (D. Ingram)

• Participants in Get Your Hands On Astronomy spent the afternoon of 6/20 at LHO building a variety of simple astronomy implements and exploring the physics of light. Our thanks to the Tri-City Astronomy Club for assistance with staffing.

LIGO Livingston Observatory (LLO) and Interferometer Operations (Giaime)

Enhanced LIGO (Valera Frolov)

• This last commissioning work on thermal compensation and electronics resulted in improved bns inspiral range of 14 Mpc. This is the best DC readout sensitivity achieved by L1 interferometer so far. (The best range before that was 12 Mpc during E14).
• The range improvement came mostly from increasing the input power to 10 W and tuning the thermal compensation and (de)coupling the interferometer auxiliary degrees of freedom from DARM. The new method for the OMC mode matching/optical gain monitoring has been utilized. It involves comparing the calibration amplitude before and after the OMC.
• The standard set of measurements of the DARM loop electronics transfer functions and the measurement of the DARM actuation coefficient were performed by the calibration team. The calibration measurements will continue this week.
• Part of the week was spent on debugging the 1/f2 like excess noise in the DARM loop. The noise was eventually found to be coming from the digital system and was cleared by rebooting the Y end station front end processor. The output noise of the coil drivers and bias modules was measured during the noise investigation and was found to be a factor of 3 below the DARM noise at all frequencies except possibly small frequency range around 220 Hz.
• The intensity noise from the PMC misalignment was saturating the PSL intensity stabilization servo. The beam alignment into the PMC shifted after the laser pump was turned off and on during the maintenance for power measurements. After the alignment was restored the PSL intensity noise returned to nominal level.

CDS (Keith Thorne)

Commissioning Support:

• Worked with LHO staff to get TCS chiller servo code corrected. Code now installed correctly controls the chiller temperature.  Carl is working with Tobin and Valera to provide an interpolation table for TCS tuning.
• Fixed LVEA, HAM6 microphone PEM readouts.   Jeremy Birch found a crushed HAM6 microphone cable and that LVEA and HAM6 were swapped in the DAQ (and one on a dead ADCU channel). Moved both to new channels and verified they are working.
• Did power-cycle reboots at end stations to correct apparent noise issues in DARM control.  New wrinkle was to wait for timing to de-skew below 10 micro-seconds before booting ISC crate.  Not sure it is required or not.
• Worked with Rai Weiss to understand apparent noise on ITMX bias module.  Turned out measurement was erroneous due to Zener circuit.
• Determined that 'missing' DMT trends were actually only misplaced in the 'current' directory instead of GPS-indexed ones.  This will be corrected with John Zweizig's help.
• Installed lal/lalapps source for injection machine code building.
• Order additional GigE cameras.  Creating permanent installation for camera server.

S6 Upgrades:

• Moved FB0 frame-writer and NDS server to final hardware.
• Currently updating code on FB0 concentrator to match FB1.
• Merged per-Nov'08 raw minute trend data into FB1 trend files.
• Installed all KVM cabling for new system.
• Moved decommissioned machines to spares racks.
• Get server certs for new web server.  Documenting process in wiki.
• Racked new x2200M2 in spares racks.
• Received new 12TB RAID array to build up new file server.

System Administration:

• Created ilog and wiki accounts.
• Recovered from lock-up on main file server due to SCSI glitch.
• Recovered main LDAP server problem apparently from earlier file-server issues.
• Replaced weak/bad Ethernet cables on FOM projectors.
• Consolidated remaining Solaris systems in racks to make room for new servers.

LLO Outreach

(Kathy Holt)

• Conducted 1 public tour for 11 visitors.
• Hosted Dillard University pre-service and in-service teachers with Dr.Darwish and 22 students,  LSU PACER program of 8 students and 1 advisor, in addition to Brigg Ulymer's  4 grad students.
• Conducted a field trip experience for High Road Park Observatory "Stargazers" 9 students and 2 advisors.
• Worked on budgets and budget planning for spending the last of the monies from initial  LIGO grant.
• Visit to Southern University to meet and greet Dr. McGuire and to the inquiry lab.
• Continuing to schedule fall and spring school groups.
• Compiled materials and prepared for LSU Teacher workshop on Friday.
• Spoke with Copper Mill's principal about fall experiences for students and discussed teacher training by LIGO staff prior to the student field trip.
• Mailed heater to Exploratorium for evaluation and repair.
• Set interview with Tien for July 2.
• Discussed with Michelle about interviewing for SEC position.

(Amber Stuver)

• Gave a public lecture at the Highland Road Park Observatory in Baton Rouge on LIGO and Muli-messenger Astronomy.  It was well attended with ~60 people (that is nearly capacity!).
• Gave control room tours to 2 summer camps (~55 students).
• Gave a public tour to a family of 6.
• Met with Lisa Szechter to continue work on grant to investigate parent/child interactions in the SEC.
• Continued working with LLO's RET teacher.
• Travel to and attended the Amaldi8 Meeting in NYC and gave a talk on the outreach work being done in the SEC (G0900502) and presented a poster on delayRatio (G0900503).

LIGO computing and network security (Roddy)

Reported under General Computing, see below

General computing and LDAS admin (Giardina)

Reported under General Computing, see below

Reported under LDAS System Administration, see below

Data analysis & computing (Yakushin)

Storage/Condor/LDAS admin:

Reported under LDAS System Administration, see below

Data analysis:

Reported under Data Analysis activities, see below

Mechanical and Optical Systems (Coyne)

See also Advanced LIGO

Controls and Data Systems (Bork)

See Advanced LIGO

40-Meter Interferometer (Adhikari)

• Work continues on measurements of the DARM loop and calibration of it. This is going to require automation of determination of the readout quadrature.

Thermal Noise Interferometer (Black)

• This week Greg is in New York for the Amaldi conference. Akira is adding one more plot to his paper, on Innocenzo's suggestion, and Eric is working on interpreting Greg's earlier data. The initial model for the photothermal response does not appear to have been quite accurate, and a newer model that takes into account the heat distribution between the coating and substrate at all frequencies gives a response much more in line with what we have observed in the lab. There is still some work to do on the model and on the calibration of the experimental setup, but as of now it looks like we are putting together a coherent picture of what is going on.

LASTI (Mittleman)

No report provided.

CIT Science Group (Weinstein)

__________

Ajith Parameswaran:

• Working with two SURF students on their projects.
• Writing a paper on spinning IMR waveforms.

__________

Chad Hanna:

• I have been working with Anthony and Munier (the SURFS) on sky localization.
• I have been working on post processing for the highmass search and S6 with Kipp, Duncan, Collin.

__________

Antony Searle:

• Amaldi.
• SURF supervision.

__________

Peter Kalmus:

• Talk at PSU Probing Neutron Stars conference.
• Talk at Amaldi 8.

__________

Drew Keppel:

• Speeding up the injection code for LLOID.

__________

Amber L. Stuver:

• Ran a shift at LLO during E14 with 2 trainees (including the RET teacher that is working with me this summer).
• Traveled to and attended the Amaldi8 Meeting in NYC.
• Presented a poster on delayRatio (G0900503) and gave a talk on the outreach work being done at the SEC (G0900502).
• Developed guidelines for MATLAB software that has been in development to be promoted to production (official/reviewed) releases. (https://ligo.gwastro.psu.edu/wiki/MatApps/index.php?title=Development2Production).

__________

Cristina Valeria Torres:

• Integrate new science segment look up capacity into follow up pipeline.  This is required to do the omega scan glitch background analysis of significance.
• Explore the possibility of using tracksearch (in a DMT environment) to track the TCS thermal lines as part of a way to monitor test mass temperatures in S6. This is a new line of potential work I'm discussing with Rupal Amin, and we are still exploring this potential use for tracksearch.

__________

Kari Hodge:

• I am now in the process of changing my code to read coinc information from SQL rather than XLM tables. Once I do this, I will be able to insert my MVSC code into the high mass post processing pipeline.
• SURF student Tristan Miller and I are working on running the MVSC code multiple times for both optimization and the purpose of finding the errors due to statistical fluctuations.

__________

Igor Yakushin:

• Attending Amaldi8. Presented a talk at the plenary session: https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/private/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=3097.

__________

Pinkesh Patel:

• Ongoing work for the resampling review.
• Worked with Ina, Joe's and my SURF student on code for correction of glitches from pulsars.
• Started working on a pilot search from globular clusters.

__________

Kipp Cannon:

• Working with Sanjit Mitra and Dan Stratman on a problem related to the deconvolution of gravitational wave sky maps.
• Working with Romain Carrilou, Chad Hanna and Drew Keppel on techniques for high speed, low-latency, inspiral data analysis.

Laboratory Computing (Anderson)

LDAS System Administration (Anderson)

Caltech

(Dan Kozak)

• Reworked hoft_rsync.sh at LHO to rsync from /dmt/frames to /archive/frames/online/hoft.
• IDed ~400 tapes at CIT for shippment to sites, will be relabelling and shipping.
• Figured out (with a little help from Sun) how to convert a 6140 RAID 5 vdisk to RAID 6. The first vdisk is still running, but will be checking that no data was corrupted during the transistion.
• Replaced failed drive in thumper1 at CIT.
• Replaced failed drive in 6140 (home3) at CIT.
• Worked on restoring working SAM-QFS configuration at LLO after OS upgrades.
• Working with Alexander Stroeer to make his jobs use /archive/frames data more effectively.
• Pinned /archive/frames/online/DQ/ to disk at CIT for Duncan.

(Phil Ehrens)

• Ongoing work preparing and tweaking MOU reporting website.
• Various certificate related user support issues.
• Various auth-comm related discussions and tasks.

(Josh Abadie)

• Installed MDS monitor.
• Monitored cluster.
• Brought last rack of X2200 nodes online.

MIT

(Fred Donovan)

• More bates work, purchasing, configuring head nodes, etc.

Livingston

(Igor Yakushin).

• Swapped ngateway and gateway.
• Restarted rsync push scripts from LLO to CIT.
• Reinstalled OS on opterondata-llo and patched it to get from Solaris * 10 U5 to U7.

Hanford

(Greg Mendell)

• Worked on a problem using Disk2Disk to copy second trends at LLO.
• Finished up fixing issues with trend data at LHO and LLO.
• Working on last issues to get trend and LDAS hoft data published at LHO and LLO.
• Worked on LDG 4.8 release.
• Worked with Larry Wallace and LIGO CSO on I2U2 server box at CIT.
• Worked with LDAS staff and LIGO CSO on how omega scan should run during S6.

(Dan Moraru)

• Upgraded drives in pcdev1 to 300GB.
• Took Monday and Tuesday off.
• Set up DNS and mail servers and cleaned up /etc/hosts files on head nodes.
• Cabled in and powered up thumper2.

General Computing (Wallace)

MIT

(Fred)

• Some disk issues with file server, plan on switching over to new file server soon.

Livingston

(Dwayne)

• Troubleshooting sound issues with HPLF PC.
• Assisted two users with printing posters.
• Installed bluetooth mini pci express chips in three Dell laptops.
• Created a VPN account for Celine.
• Reset Mick's VPN password.
• Set up new outreach employee with email and docshare accounts.
• Upgrade JIRA on ics-test instance.  discovered many bugs and missing details in the migration steps, and not surprisingly the system is currently broken.
• Working with Appfire engineer to resolve above.
• Lost our primary network connections two afternoons this week.  Shannon has opened a ticket.
• Upgraded our CanIt appliance install.
• Received new laptop for new operator.
• Attended a few meetings.
• Worked a couple small procurement items -Numerous usual/unusual user support requests.
• Cleared spam trap daily.

(Shannon)

Auth/GC/network related:

• Configured vlans at west end station switch.
• Created matapps-discuss list:
  • Configured.
  • Added Sam Finn as moderator.
  • Later in the week I looked into a problem in said list.
• Discussed phpmyadmin issue with Dwayne.
• Followed up on AT&T outage yesterday:
  • Charter network connection looks fine between us and them, will still go to mid and clean fibers since this task will become problematic during the run.
  • Reminded folks that there is a delay till BGP fails over, though it does seem there is a routing problem upstream at Level3.  Following up with Charter presently.
  • Need to schedule a test before run starts to make sure failover is working properly.
  • Updated the MRTG web page to show BGP peers first.
• Attempting to recover from a disk failure on a RAID5 on my workstation.
• Auth Telecon, GC Telecon, etc.

Security related:

• Closed a major security hole in ligo.org auth.
• Worked with Keith to check on LDAP server:
  • Temporarily disconnected CDS from GC because Keith thought it might be a security issue.
• Looked into a bittorrent alert @LLO.
• Usual IDS logs, etc.

Hanford

(Jonathan)

• Testing sendmail with Kerberos on CentOS.
• Test sendmail now working with secure LDAP lookups.
• Testing POP/IMAP server with LDAP/Kerberos.
• Setup and support for summer teacher/interns.
• User support Rick Savage, Mike Landry.
• Issued a visitor a GC account to work on bringing omega scans outside of ldas.
• Racked a x2200 for use as a webserver, and testing the config with kerberos, ldap, ...
• Setup new laptop for ADL project management.
• Migrate webserver (jupiter) to a new CentOS box and back onto a permanent machine.
• Opened support request regarding backscatter problems with cit-all.
• Meeting with Abe re: Kerberos.

Caltech

(Veronica)

• The new LSC website is in the production mode.  Post-release troubleshooting, ongoing updates/maintenance.  The old site is still up and will be running for some time for reference.
• Researching the ways to migrate the old DCC to the new system.
• Attended a course on php/mysql.
• Updates of the LIGO/ LSC webpages.

(Mike)

• Worked on multiple user account modifications.
• Ordered additional supplies/software for GC, and other users.
• Setup a linux box for a user on 2ed floor.
• Troubleshot an issue with email & login issues for multiple users.
• Setup a laptop for new user.
• Working on the NTSRV's running backup scripts.
• Took care of many printers issues this week.
• Trouble shot some wireless network issues.
• Looked into a database issue on our old DCC database server.
• Loaded Diskeeper on a few of our critical servers. Later this week I will be loading this software on the rest of our critical NTSRV's.
• Added multiple new wireless mac addresses to our Access Points.
• Other misc. user/phone support, and other sysadmin daily tasks.

(Christian)

• Rand Dannenberg - Called Dell support to have Rand's keyboard replace on laptop.
• Rich Abbott - Installed additional memory on laptop.
• Ricicardo Desalvo - MacBook pro keeps crashing. removed drive from laptop and replaced it on loaner laptop. Calling Kar from IMSS to have it service. Installed and configuerd new Laptop for Riccardo.
• Stocked printer cartridges that were delivered to LIGO this week.
• Re-imaged Mike's old MacBook pro for the loaner pull.
• Other misc.: Continued onsite software/phone support.

(Larry)

• Went through a number of purchases. Purchased a number of new computers for different people/groups. Purchased a number of misc. computer items to replace worn out equipment. Renewed another licensing contract. Purchased misc. items for other groups.
• Installed a couple of new licenses and s/w packages for different users.
• More troubleshooting on the Labview setup in one of the labs.
• Minor assistance to Shannon on troubleshooting a network issue at LLO.
• Installed a new OS on a couple of machines. Once again Christians non-attending DVD saved a lot of time.
• More updates and changes on the DNS tables. Some changes were on the fly and tested out immediately which proved to be a big advantage for the end user.
• Still setting up and modifying accounts for the SURF students and new hires.
• Reviewed a number of local logs and reports on different servers. So far things are looking good.
• Updated the h/w (memory and disk) on a couple of old PC units. Setup a couple of monitors on a few boxes. We are now using all of the spare 19 inch monitors.
• Worked on a couple of virtualbox setups.
• Purchased a couple of ergonomic keyboards to test out. So far the wave shaped ones appear to be a good solution.
• Regular user assistance and meeting attendance.

(Melody)

• DCC User support (removing wrong files and versions, allowing access.
• Continued addressing myLIGO trouble tickets and worked on stabilizing the system.
• Attended a meeting with the opt-mechanical  group regarding how to use DCC for procurements.

Distributed (Grid) Computing R&D (Blackburn)

Grid Application Development

Einstein@Home on the OSG:

• Deployed a new version of the Einstein@Home application on OSG sites that support LIGO. This new version has several bug fixes and addresses issues found a several sites. The new deployment is gradually being started up on OSG sites to assure a smooth transition and collection of science credits.
• Began reviewing the Condor-G paradigm as a foundation for job submission in the Einstein@Home application instead of the direct GRAM submission. This should help with running at higher throughput at sites that have seen head node loading issues in the past.
• Recent Average Credits for the past week were 148,555 credits, down about 3K from last week; Weekly rank based on Recent Average Credits was 10 (down by one from last week); Accumulative rank for total credits is now 26th in the world (better by 1 from last week).

Binary Inspiral Application on Grids:

• Added RLS checking to the python script used to transfer frame data to SRM storage elements and concurrently populate RLS catalogs. Script reruns the copy and check if inconsistencies are found.
• Tested new Pegasus 2.3 RPM.
• Recent code changes to the CBC code have caused the generation of DAX workflows to fail. Have discussed this with CBC leads and expect to see this sorted out after a rework of the code in about one to two months.

Open Science Grid Integration & Validation Testbed

• Currently participating in the second ITB 1.1.0 release cycle.
• Upgraded all CentOS 5 packages on the ITB Cluster.
• Attending a face-to-face meeting of the ITB Documentation subgroup today in Chicago.

Grid Management

• Continued to put finishing touches on Annual NSF Report of OSG.
• Continued to review OSG keynote presentation given at the TG09 Conference this week. All report have been that the talk went well.
• At the request of the OSG Project Manager, reviewed contract between the OSG and the hotel identified to host the OSG Council Face to Face meeting in August. Several issues with the contract were identified and University of Wisconsin will request changes bases on recommended changes to address issues.
• Provided suggestions to LIGO's OSG Council Representative (Patrick Brady) for a request from the OSG regarding LIGO's experiences and needs in the area of OSG scalability, reliability and Usability.
• Working with LIGO postdoc, found an issue with the script used to renew user certificates. After contacting Greg Mendell and discussing this in the CompComm, it appears this is mostly an issue seen on MacOS but has been seen on either other hosts and/or other operating systems. It may be related to a recent set of kiddy-scripts that have appeared for inducing DoS on webservers.
• Communicated with Duncan Brown regarding planned changes to the CBC codes to better utilize Pegasus. At the moment, these changes have resulted in a loss of the ability to generate workflows for job submission on the OSG. Duncan expects this will be cleared up in a month or two and job submission onto the OSG should be in better shape than it has historically been due to greater coupling between DAG and DAX generation.
• Discussed OmegaScan code plans for the upcoming run with SCAT and with Duncan Brown in the CompComm and via email. Have invited Duncan to attend this week's SCAT telecon to assure the plan moves forward quickly and with reasonable goals for security.
• Continued to support a large number of request for certificates and LIGO Data Grid accounts.

Advanced LIGO and Supporting R&D (Shoemaker)

Advanced LIGO Management

Procurements

For Ed Jasnow

• Submitted the procurement package for the maraging steel manufacturing contract to the NSF for approval on Tuesday, June 23.  This package was submitted both via FastLane and direct e-mail to Ann Miller. Monitored evaluation and selection process for both core optics coating contracts.  Making sure the evaluation process is proceeding on an expedited basis. Reviewed changes to documents related to the contract with Columbia University.  TechMart requisition signed off by Deputy Director on June 25.

For Jacqueline Champagnie and Gina Salone

• No report this week.

For Rudy

• Prepared procurement package for the maraging steel manufacturing.

For Steve

• Issued Request for Information (RFI) documentation for upcoming Advanced LIGO procurement for the Main Optic Carriers-Cake Tins. Their Declaration of Interest is due on 6/26/09. (Tech Rep: Calum Torrie).
• Submitted RFQ No. SM-150 “LIGO 28AWG In-Vacuum Wire” to four prospective suppliers. The bids are due on 6/30/09. (Tech Rep: Rich Abbott)
• Begun preliminary documentation on upcoming procurement SM-152 “LIGO Eight Channel Valve Drive Assembly” (Tech Rep: Ben Abbott).

Property -- Rod Luna

• Working with A. Brummitt and J.Fauver in arranging a shipment from UK coming to the US in two weeks.
• Received US Customs letters denying duty-free for the lasers at Hanford and Livingston; will work with Adilia Koch to explore a possible protest against the rulings.
• Assisted K. mason with providing approximate shipping cost from MD to LHO and LLO.
• Reviewed shipping / freight invoices for May.
• Working in creating a report with all Capital Equipment acquisitions under ADL.
• Attended the "PO Datafields for LIGO Buyers" presentation by M. Kurts.

Advanced LIGO Systems

From: Calum Torrie <ctorrie@ligo.caltech.edu>

• AOSEM Review: The AOSEM review is moving into its next phase. On Monday or Tuesday we will review the answers, from the AOSEM team,  to the questions from  the committee.
• SLC PDR: I am on the committee for the SLC PDR. The first meeting is today, Wednesday.
• Optic Containers: Ed and I with help from Ken Mailand and Mike Gerfen are working on final tweaks to the container drawings. The final item we are looking at is a custom bellow made from Viton to enclose the mechanical parts associated with the "wedge" plate.
• How to Document Procurements: Dennis, Melody and I (along with Alan Wilkins) have put together the following document to define the documentation which is required for the procurements. This is in draft form on the DCC at the following link T0900260
• OMC mock up structure: We now have a quote for 2 "mock-up" OMC suspension structures. These will be used in damping tests at both Caltech and Stanford.
• Testing damping concepts: We (Ken Mailand and I) have sent an I-beam and breadboard to a local shop for manufacture. This will be used along with the first 2 "mock-up" structures  to test various damping methods on the small and large HAM suspension structures.
• Gold Barrell Sleeve: I am working on a symmetric option for the gold barrel sleeve proposed for around the ETM/ITM optic. This should be ready and in the DCC by the end of the week.

Modeling and Simulation

From: Hiroaki Yamamoto hiro@ligo.caltech.edu

Static IFO Simulation and COS/TCS Analysis (Hiro, Logan, Andy)

• Using an advLIGO arm with thermal deformations on ITM/ETM surface and the thermal lens in ITM was used to study the mode coupling of the input beam and the resonating mode in the cavity was studied, The result will be summarized in T0900306. It is shown that:
  • The surface deformation on ITM & ETM determined the diffractive loss and the higher order mode content of the resonating field in the cavity.
  • The thermal lens determined the mode coupling between the input beam and the cavity, and the total power in the cavity and the higher order mode fraction in the signal sideband is determined mostly by the thermal lens, but very little on the surface deformation.
  Adny Chen (higher school student volunteer) worked to find the optimal ring hater curvature under various cases.
  
  
• Logal Daum (MIT SURF) has benn developing the code of the reflection by a tilted mirror using Python. The first version of the code is finished and he is debugging. The Python code will be converted to C++ after the code validation so that it will become part of the SIS package.

Safety

From: David Nolting   dnolting@ligo-la.caltech.edu

• Worked with the HEPI Assembly team at LLO this past week and all went well and according to plan.  The safety plan was closely followed and there were no safety incidents to report. 
• Participated in the SLC PDR and provided direction for the design of the Hazard Analysis that is currently being completed.
• Continue to prepare for upcoming document reviews for BSC-ISI, TCS-PDR and Optical Lever Review.

Quality Assurance

From: Mick Flanigan flanigan_m@ligo-wa.caltech.edu

Inspections:

• Visited two shops this week, one shop working on small metal blades, and another shop that we are researching to see if they can do some of the work requested and to ensure they are in the bid process.
• The first vendor visited gave us a brief tour of their facilities and showed off their capabilities with other work for customers from communications, aerospace, research, etc. Their portfolio is quite impressive. When we got the chance to look at the prototype work being done for us, there was an immediate concern with the varied blade height, and the apparent issues rolling these in a matched fashion to meet our specs. Some other concerns were identified. In the time since this meeting the supplier has been working extremely proactively to come up with all the requested solutions. We are hopeful we will see a very nice set of matched prototypes, but we are also afraid we will slip on delivery of these items a couple weeks.
• Second shop was a very good visit, the company has excellent fast prototype capabilities, and have several plants and subs to perform varying degrees of work. A couple of items of concern: They have a facility that has a great deal of coexisting CNC work being done on nylons, plastics, and metals. There is some concern about contamination of UHV pieces. That being said, they do have separate facilities where they exclusively work on metals, and also have the capability to do large pieces, welding, etc. If they can't do something ,they will either sub out the work and manage the quality, delivery, or they will be up front with us in stating that the work is beyond their capabilities.

Inventory Control System:

• We had a large build sent to Dwayne this past Monday to be loaded to the test server and then pushed to the production server, however we found that there were some very severe issues with the build instructions. Dwayne did not get a list of proper steps to build, and therefore caused our system to crash several times. I am currently working with the team to get this up and running asap, and also working to ensure the company delivers us a validated and tested set of build instructions in the future, we cannot afford to be wasting Dwayne's time with bad builds, and delaying our teams in using features. The good news on this is that the loads are fully tested and working great, however this is only on the company development server, not ours. I certainly hope we have this ironed asap, as we have numerous deliverables due this coming week or so, and I don't' want to slip anymore.

Optics:

• Discussed the coatings specifications with the procurements team and am working with them on the QA plan reviews from vendors. Also have nothing to report on the work being done at polishing with regards to the Core Optics. Work appears to be progressing without a hitch. Will review the handling and shipping techniques with the teams when the shipping containers are ready to go in mid august.

HEPI:

• We have a few items that are not passing the leak tests at LLO. I am following up with the team to see how we will disposition these. Am still waiting on a resolution on the bellows assemblies that were failed by the actuator contractor, what our timelines are going to be.

Columbia U:

• Have talked with Szabi and we are going to roll our JIRA to them for inventorying their boards for Advanced LIGO, tracking shipments, assembly, defects. Will be onsite at Columbia in a few weeks to deliver training, verify our design meets requirements.

Facilities Modifications and Preparations

From: John Worden <worden_j@ligo-wa.caltech.edu>

• No report this week.

Seismic Isolation

From: Ken Mason kmason@ligo.mit.edu

aLIGO Project Activities

SEI  Electronics Design and Fabrication:

• Some of the HEPI L4C cables were shipped toBrian O'Reilly at Livingston yesterday.  The remaining ones will go out to Hanford today, or tomorrow. I am waiting for quotes from the five electro-mechanical assembly houses for the construction of 27 HEPI 8-channel Valve Drivers.  Steve Marroquin is running with this now, and when the quotes come back, we'll make a decision. Steve has requested official quotes for the in-vacuum wire for AdvLIGO. I spent the last two days writing up the electronics portion of the BSC ISI PDR document.  It took some design work to figure out what we will want for that system. ~Ben A.

HAM ISI Design and Procurement:

• Quotes for the miscellaneous machioned parts arrived this week. We are evaluating the bids and may need to send the package to the NSF for approva (due to lower costs than anticipated)l. Pod, flexures, and spring post bids are also due this week.

HEPI Procurements and Assembly:

HEPI -- Joe Hanson, Myron MacInnis, Jim Warner, Erik Allwine, Hugh Radkins

• Pump Stations -- Repaired Manifolds back to electro polisher, should be heading home end next week.
• Procurements -- All the Counterwound Springs are delivered.  Still need three more machined parts to build Housings at LHO.
• HEPI Build -- LLO should be completing their 24 HEPI assemblies this week.  LHO is cleaning & organizing hardware and work areas in preparation for assembling the remaining HEPI assemblies. ~Hugh R.

R & D Activities

BSC ISI Design and Test:

• Design: Members of the SEI team are preparing documents for the BSC ISI PDR. Documents will be uploaded to the DCC and aLIGO wiki by 6/30 for the review committee.

Suspensions

From "Greenhalgh, RJS (Justin)" <justin.greenhalgh@stfc.ac.uk>

ALUK held its latest Project Management Committee on 24 June 2009 (See LIGO-M0900178-v1). A brief activity summary follows.

RAL:

• OJEU process status as follows:
  • Machined items - We need to specify modifications to a few parts and check the original order against the new BOM. Otherwise complete.
  • Weldments - The RGA testing is now understood following a visit by Bob Taylor. The tank is thought to be clean; some of the settings on the RGA were wrong; we need a much smaller calibrated leak (“LIGO leak” on order); a few minor suggestions were made about heating and insulation.
  • Blade springs - All blades complete. ETM/ITM blades characterised, but results not yet processed. BS/FM blades being characterised.
  • Shipments to the US have now started. First crates have reached LLO and LHO; two more are at RAL stores awaiting despatch; others are being packed by US team at RAL. Many thanks to the US for helping out with this huge task.

•  Glasgow: The fist test hang has been completed using a 40kg metal mass with bonded ears and using the welding techniques as planned for LIGO. No change to schedule for LASTI glass hang; but we are still dependent on ears being polished in time by our suppliers.

•  Birmingham/Strathclyde: ~475 OSEMs are ready to ship; production continues at about 100/month.  UIM approved and orders placed. Top units approved (quad and triple). Schedule being studied to win breathing space at tend of extended grant (end March 2010). VM dampers continue to be prepared for testing and trial fit checks, but we do not yet have a solution to the sealing problem so if LASTI reveals that the dampers are needed we will need to develop a solution. A report has been written that needs some minor additions to prepare it for wider circulation.

•  Overall: RGA testing problems now thought to be understood thanks to visit of Bob Taylor; shipping underway in earnest thanks to visit by US team; electronics approvals now coming through and orders being placed; BOSEMs towards the end of production. VM damping report being prepared for circulation to relevant parties.

  From Janeen Romie and Norna Robertson  
  (romie_j@ligo-la.caltech.edu, nroberts@ligo.caltech.edu)

Operations Work

• We are working on the answers to the questions that came up from the final design review and fabrication readiness review for the value engineered LIGO 1 style OSEMs was held last week.
• Many drawings for the large triple were signed off this week so procurement will quickly commence for these prototype parts.

Project-Funded Activities

• At Glasgow, the 40 kg mass has now been hanging for two weeks and mode frequencies including violin modes have been measured. Results have been uploaded to the DCC ­ T0900299. Spread in violin mode frequencies is ~0.7%, which is very encouraging. Preparations are now well underway for LASTI. First test hang there is scheduled for week of 20th July. One fiber was deliberately broken. The fiber next to it broke, but the two on the other side of the mass stayed intact. They will now work on repair scenarios.
• We are in final development of a blade test facility design for the HAM suspension maraging steel blades.
• Supported IO on the cake tins (optics holders) designs by modeling in Solidworks the positions of the breakoff prisms.
• Janeen and Doug have been visiting machine shops and plating companies in Florida & Southern California who look promising as potential vendors for Advanced LIGO machined parts and weldments. Overall, we've been able to identify a number of very good shops. LLO engineers have identified machine shops in the area that they will survey in the next week or so.
• Three LIGO staff (Jodi Fauver Matthew Maxwell, Joshua Smith) are currently at RAL helping with packing quad parts for shipping and doing inventory. The parts that can be packed are crated and in the logistics area ready for shipment. There are three crates for LLO and five crates for LHO. The RAL engineer has packing lists and they've reviewed the relevant information on the pro-forma paperwork that the engineer sends to her logistics folks. It is believed that once she gets the proper tarrif number from Rod Luna, everything will be ready to ship. She anticipated getting the crates out the door tomorrow [friday.]
• Norna attended the monthly ALUK telecon.

Prestabilized Laser

From: Peter King <pking@ligo.caltech.edu>

Operations

• Nothing significant to report.

Project

• Problems are still being experienced with the cooling of the 200-W laser. After some time of running, the pump diode temperature starts climbing due to an oscillation in the chiller's temperature regulation. The temperature steadily increases beyond the set threshold levels and the chiller shuts down. Another heat exchanger will be installed between the house water supply and the laser chiller.
• Some teething problems are being experienced with the laser's new injection locking electronics. The old injection locking electronics are being used for the time being. The highest power I have observed from the laser is about 190 W, however this was when the laser was not locked. When locked the power level is typically between 160 and 170 W. Some dust contamination of the optics was observed and this has affected the performance of the laser. Note that the AEI high bay does not have the same cleanliness level as the cleanroom at LZH. This identifies the need for thinking about for the planned Laser Area Enclosure to be built at the observatories.

Input Optics

From: David Tanner <tanner@phys.ufl.edu>

Advanced LIGO Design

• The H2 layout was analyzed and we have come-up with a new set of parameters, stored at http://ilog.ligo-wa.caltech.edu:7285/advligo/COC_Final_Design_Review?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=RCPara1.pdf The revised layout has changed the SRC ROCs a little. (Muzammil)
• The design of the shipping/storage containers for the input optics and recycling cavity mirrors is nearing completion. (Luke)

Advanced LIGO R&D

• We have begun a medium-term damage testing and vacuum compatibility for a SiC sample as baffle material. An RGA is monitoring the outgassing as the sample is exposed to ~90W incident power focused onto a 1 mm diameter spot. (David F)

Advanced LIGO Procurement

• We have implemented latest changes in the cavity parameters for the folded IFO in the specifications for the bid package. Working with UF Purchasing on fine-tuning the language of the bid package for public release. (Rodica)

Core Optics

From: GariLynn Billingsley <Billingsley_G@ligo.caltech.edu>

• The Jaz spectrophotometer of Ocean Optics has been tested and it works fine with OO's software SpectroSuite. Since the current RTS is in Labview 6.0 and the OO's Labview library is developed in the 8.0, we will build a Labview 8.0 and Vista based DAQ system for RTS to integrate the Jaz into RTS. This is also the upgrade of RTS DAQ that we have been planning for a while. Checking availabilities and compatibilities of all the existing instruments' drivers in Labview 8.0 and preparing a purchase list are underway.
• Got back vacuum frisbee from shop for tests of removal of first contact. Physics shop putting together a vacuum connection for tests initially on plateglass. This will be combined with a mesh where it is hoped clean removal of the polymer is possible. Worked out calibration method for microspectrophotometer that is now very quantitative in reflectance. Used the FTIR in transmittance in the same way. Can get spectral data from 400 nm to 2500 nm with the range from 800-1200 nm is excluded. Got Aerospace shop started on a microscope objective fixture for the scanning RTS spectrophotometer.
• Heraeus will be delivering two of the last three compensation plates late, August 28th. This has been conveyed to Tinsley and does not affect the polishing schedule.
• The contract for the Suspension Masses (penultimate and End reaction) has been let to Heraeus.
• The specification for large aperture interferometer has been reviewed internally and by three industry experts. The specification is ready for release. A statement of work and budgetary estimate will follow soon.
• Finishing work is underway in Downs Labs 15 and 15A in order to accommodate optic storage and cleaning facilities.

Auxiliary Optics

From:   Michael Smith <smith@ligo.caltech.edu>

ADLIGO Work Under Project Budget

OPTICAL LAYOUT:

• Mike completed a preliminary ZEMAX layout for H2 based upon shifting the positions of PRM and MC3 and placing MC2 at the lowest height on HAM 9. He is in the process of reworking H1 to incorporate the latest IO optical coordinates.

Work Under Operations Budget

OPTICAL LEVER

• Craig is surveying the industry to determine if an off-the-shelf telescope mount that meets our specifications is available.
• Craig determined that a 5 deg C temperature rise of the LVEA would cause the optlev pylon to expand vertically by approximately 0.003 inch, which would cause an apparent angular reading on the ITM optlev by > 1 microrad. Dennis has asked Rusyl and John Worden to provide temperature trend data at both sites, so that we can determine whether or not to stabilize the temperature of the optical lever pylon.
• John states that a random sampling of viewports at LHO indicates that 7.8 diameter viewports are installed in certain HAM chambers and therefore are qualified to be used for the ITM and ETM optlev beams and for other optlev viewports as necessary.
• Tara and Ian are making good progress setting up the optlev beam focussing experiment in the sub basement. Ben Abbott supplied a LIGO QPD assembly for the test.

OUTPUT FARADAY ISOLATOR:

• Ken and Mike checked Niem's latest drawings. Several blade springs and mounting hardware were received for the preliminary blade spring tests using readily available 1095 spring steel. The results of these tests will help determine the design of the maraging steel springs. The prototype weldment and various Faraday isolator table components have been received in preparation for the eddy current damping test of the suspension.

ETM Telescope:

• Virginio is calculating the parameters for the double-pendulum ETM Telescope/Transmon suspension. Jesse, a SURF student, created a preliminary ABCD matrix model for the Gaussian beam propagation through the ETM Telescope onto the near-field and far-field QPDs on the Transmon table.

TCS:

• Ken  is making the detailed working drawing for the thermal housing for Phil Willems co2 laser. Josh, a SURF student, and Phil measured the reflectivity of a fused silica substrate with a CO2 laser beam at various polarizations and angles of incidence. Phil is calculating the Fresnel reflection by using a complex index of refraction at the 10.6 micron wavelength.

35 W Aircooled Beam Dump:

• Aidan tested one of the beam dumps, and measured the scattering.

Control and Data Systems

From: Rolf Bork <rolf@ligo.caltech.edu>

Primary task right now is helping sites get ready for S6.

AdvLigo Project CDS SEI Activity

• Some of the HEPI L4C cables were shipped toBrian O'Reilly at Livingston yesterday. The remaining ones will go out to Hanford today, or tomorrow.
• I am waiting for quotes from the five electro-mechanical assembly houses for the construction of 27 HEPI 8-channel Valve Drivers. Steve Marroquin is running with this now, and when the quotes come back, we'll make a decision.
• Steve has requested official quotes for the in-vacuum wire for AdvLIGO.
• I spent the last two days writing up the electronics portion of the BSC ISI PDR document. It took some design work to figure out what we will want for that system. ~Ben

ISC Development

• The baseline design for the ETM transmission monitor was shown at last week's ISC telecon. At this stage, an in-air prototype will next be created.
• CAD work and vendor quotes for a flexible circuit board plus integral alumina stiffeners was completed for the Advanced LIGO OSEM (AOSEM).
• A "new" style POX detector was sent to LLO to replace the initial LIGO style detector. The new unit has improvements in the RF response that may lead to higher power operation at the POX port. This has been desired for some time.
• The first wave of Advanced LIGO RF photodetector design is complete and documented. The newer goal of multi-frequency readout from single diodes has been successfully demonstrated in the simulator. ~Rich

For additional information about this report, contact Albert Lazzarini